|
I am running for Student Director-At-Large this year for NCECA! I've attached my formal video below (where you get to see my well decorated at not at all college-student level of aesthetic) and I hope you'll consider voting for me for the position of Student Director-At-Large. To put it simply: I am invested in NCECA's future. I see rising students and "unestablished" ceramicists as necessary to the continuation and development of NCECA as an inclusive organization. This year's theme, Cross Currents, is especially relevant. Regardless of personal affiliation, it should be important to every member of NCECA to make the organization more diverse, more inclusive, and accessible to all peoples; to uplift marginalized identities so that NCECA as a whole can become better for it. I am a member of the queer community, and I make a point to consider my community as well as other marginalized identities (race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc) in the future of NCECA. I want a future where everyone works together in an inclusive NCECA. Thank you for your consideration! Black Art History & Contemporary MakersAs I do my own due diligence for researching and identifying black ceramicists, I'm struggling to find information. It's almost embarrassing how I google "black ceramics" or "african american ceramics" and every iteration of ceramics, pottery, clay -- only to come up with a short list of names, relegated to a small image or a short statement. For an aspect of identity that bears importance on personal identity as well as social identity, the lack of representation of black ceramicists is disheartening. I won't pretend that I'm doing any sort of savior work by highlighting black individuals. This should be the status quo in art history and contemporary art, not a special thing. But, I can't fight for intersectional feminism of all peoples - races, genders, sexualities, etc - and ignore the struggles of black artists. What I am doing is trying to make the information available and educating my own audience. In the process, I need to examine my own privileges and biases. I am a white individual. I use a number of identifiers for my gender and sexuality, but to keep it simple - I am agender, I use they/them pronouns, and I use the labels queer and trans. I am under thirty. I am able bodied. I am neurodivergent. I am privileged to have a formal arts education, and the means to continue into a masters program for art history. I go to a university where there are classes taught on African art - I'm currently enrolled in Contemporary African art and African Photography courses, and I was able to take Female Identity in African Art last semester. I have access to classes on high versus low art, Feminist art, craft and fine art, and various intersections of identity. In my search this month to highlight black ceramicists, I also need to be aware of how labels affect individuals. I was too eager to use a specific artist's work today - his pieces are about how using one individual label (i.e. American, black, latino) reduces a person to a single stereotyped identity. Without analyzing his work, I wanted to use his work which overtly resists labels in my research about black ceramicists. My published work has many intersections of identity. How would I like to be labeled "the trans writer"? I wouldn't want my work to be reduced to a single identifier, for fear of being typecast. I can't do that to others. I am continuing to search for black ceramicists for this blog, but I need to find individuals who overtly identify as black (or identify as part of a black diaspora). A significant part of educating others involves educating yourself, finding your own issues and bases and making the changes necessary to move forward without disrespecting others.
Almost Art HistoryA little over a week into February 2018, and I've decided to finally start working on my blog. The title of the blog is Almost Art History. It exists to highlight topics of marginalization and representation within the art history community, as well as noting contemporary issues that will affect art canon in the future. For those who know me, the big topics I'm interested in are: traditionally domestic mediums (aka craft mediums), marginalized sexualities and genders, and intersectional feminism. Since it's February, I've decided to start off on a light-hearted theme -- Black Art History & Contemporary MakersAs someone who regularly researches representation in the arts of marginalized communities, it is absolutely appalling to see how little people of color are represented in ceramics, let alone black individuals. For black history month, I'm providing information on black ceramicists - in America and internationally. I don't intend to limit black makers to a single month, however. In the future, I'll be sure to point out black ceramicists as much as possible! Let's get started with -- Duma Mtimkulu Waiting, 2017, image from Mtimkulu's Instagram (@duma.mtkl)
Duma Mtimkulu is a black ceramicist working in South Africa. Design Indaba lists him as a student of Tshwane University of Technology, and provides the following description for his work:
[A personal dialogue, accompanied by a visual introduction to contemporary ceramic artists.]
From tea bowls to vases to dinnerware. The perfection of porcelain, and The domesticity of terra cotta. This is the public understanding of ceramics. Functional pottery, red bricks and pipes. Function, not fine. Ceramic art is mired in tradition. Liberal spaces such as universities know ceramics as versatile, As valued, as vital to the formation of the arts. But critiques and degrees do not alter the canon. Art history remembers ceramics as Antiquities and mid-century experimentation, As the great Peter Voulkos and as Picasso’s hobby, As a side note of Judy Chicago’s career - The Dinner Party had dinnerware, Not expertly manipulated clay. Domestic, traditional, craft and low, Feminine pottery, masculine abstraction. History speaks of porcelain as the high of the low, A white deity among the red-tainted others. It’s in the name, low fire earthenware. Low fire meaning accessible without A team of workers and a train-car kiln. Low fire meaning affordable, A beginners clay that loses value, The clay of the past, of the earth, That reinforces the antiquity of the medium. People question why: Why ceramics? Why not wood, or metal? Why not plastic? Without understanding the process, They ask why you chose clay, Over the unspoken realness of the finer arts. I’m tired of this question. Why not ceramics? What other medium can you build With your fingerprints embedded in the surface? What other medium makes you pray to a kiln god or Frantically research the science of clay and glass And in the perfection of your efforts Reminds you that you are human, That the clay has the memory For a kiln to manifest in cracks and flaws? What other medium slips between your fingers But crystallizes overnight in the white heat of a kiln To be nearly eternal in existence? Even the novice’s cup, Rough, wobbly, and ill-formed, Lasts alongside greek vessels And the turquoise of Egyptian faience. Paintings fade, wood rots, metal rusts, But ceramics existed and will exist Far past my time, and yours. So why, when I say ceramics, Do they only remember pottery? For fragility, look at ephemeral works, Unfired clay presented in a gallery That crumbles at deinstallation. Trimmings and flowers and structures, Speaking of decay in art and architecture, Decay of the pristine and the pure. For domesticity, look at the figurative, Representation turned political, Because if all you see in a clay surface Is tradition and feminine, then Let us use your instinct against you. Explorations of culture, identity, Relationships, and emotions, Tie into a medium where your body heat Flows into the form as you build. Our hand is our pen, the clay is our voice. For versatility, look at abstraction, Glaze is uncontrollable, and it runs like water, like blood, Science and art meet, as digital programs influence The structure of the piece, or the surface. Science is not excluded from art. The masters of ceramic materials are akin to chemists, But we’re a craft medium, right? For understanding, look at vessels. They know how the art world feels, They know that to be accepted as art, they have to innovate. They know that their functional works sell for a third Of what their sculptures require, even though the time and commitment is the same. The public sees press-molded dinnerware, Bright porcelain with gold or blue details. They expect the price of a cup to parallel cheap ware. The artists calls themselves a potter to help sales, To identify with the community, even if the word potter Sours on the tongue of the high, And lowers the value of their work? So why ceramics? Why not ceramics? What stops the public from understanding ceramics, Except the canon of art history omitting our contributions? What stops art students from trying out clay, Even though they know nothing about it, Except pottery and dirt? What stops the fine arts from accepting ceramics, Accept the devaluation of our “craft” Because it is called our craft? We are formed by what we know. And I am lucky to be at a school that encourages diversity, In practice and reality, and I’m nurtured by my peers. Rachel Ballard, exploring femininity and expectations, Has reclaimed terra cotta and plant life While performing caricatures on film, Accepting and rejecting the unrequested structures. Michelle Laxalt, organizing rituals and mythos, Transfers ceramic expectations to textiles, To soap mouths and amorphous bodies, In the repetition and acceptance of identity. Ty Nicholson, reliving the stupidities of war, Using the form of versatile clay To re enact in plastic the cheap decay of the waiting, Of the inaction in a warzone, Where plastic heroes are drunk and fallible. Christina West, more than my professor, My confidant when I considered writing as a career, Who softly speaks of gender and the past Without resorting to sexualization of the feminine and the masculine in a meaningless dichotomy. And myself, bucking tradition And fighting to use vessels as a form, Without losing to the discussion Of femininity and domesticity, Fragmenting discarded art to speak of the insistence of tradition. It does not die, they will not let it. Using photography to distance ceramics from ceramics itself, To make others see the beauty in the small moments, Beauty within failures that redeem the effort, And transcends recognition of the physical clay. I am more than the tradition of my medium, And ceramics is more than your expectations. A few artists of hundreds, of thousands, That is what I give you today. I could teach you about glaze science, About the history of the kiln, About artists of the past, who led the way for our existence. But, I’d rather teach you about the present, So you can understand why we pause when you reply, “Oh, like pottery” when we say ceramics, So you can understand why I am annoyed that my studio degree contains two mentions Of ceramics in half a dozen art history courses. So you can understand how I worry about current generations Of students entering colleges who don’t see their practices Validated in the canon of the textbooks, Who question their work simply because a writer didn’t think To include ceramics alongside paintings. So you can finally understand why I flinch when you ask, “Why ceramics?” As if I need to justify my career, even though I lack canon, I lack recognition, I lack acceptance, Just like my medium. So, when you ask, “Why ceramics?” Are you asking about my practice? Or are are you asking me to justify centuries of a medium? |
Archives
March 2018
Categories |
RSS Feed